Friday, 30 November 2012

Badgering BBC Cymru

I imagine that First Minister Carwyn Jones is prowling the corridors of the Asembly Building trying to find out what idiot demanded S4C cancel a repeat of an episode of Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm because of its portrayal of the government policy on badgers.According to the Mule

A spokesman for the Welsh Government confirmed that it had made an official complaint to the BBC and S4C about a “serious breach” of BBC and Ofcom guidelines in a storyline about tuberculosis in cattle.The government believes last night’s episode of the Welsh language soap breached the public broadcasters’ duty of impartiality and have asked for tonight’s repeat (Thursday) - scheduled for 6.30pm - be cancelled.

But the Liberal Democrats said it was “astonished” that the the government could get “het up” about a soap opera, and compared its actions to that of Thick of It spin doctor Malcolm Tucker. The Welsh Government has also come under fire from Plaid Cymru and the Tories.The Mule continues ...

A Welsh Government spokesman told WalesOnline: "Following last night's episode of Pobol y Cwm, we have made an official complaint to the BBC and S4C following what we believe to be a serious breach of BBC and Ofcom guidelines. We have asked the BBC and S4C to take swift action to address our concerns."The BBC's editorial guidelines are clear that programmes are expected to ensure that 'controversial subjects' are treated with due impartiality in all their output. We do not believe this to be the case in this instance.“The BBC's guidelines also state that organisations criticised in programming should be given a ‘right of reply’, that is, given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations.’ In this case, the Welsh Government was not afforded a right of reply."

The storyline revolves around a couple running a farm worried that TB had returned to their farm.The episode features a character which goes on a local radio station, Cwm FM, to voice her frustrations with the badger policy. where she complains that the Welsh Government “didn’t have the backbone” to sort the problem out and that badgers were a “plague” and should all be shot.Perhaps the WAG would like a character who is facing ruin to be portrayed as being calm and being reasonableMaybe the dialogue should have been"Well obviously we are upsets but the problem of Badgers with TB is complex and there's more than one side to the argument of how to deal with it . So I can't really blame anyone".Maybe the Assembly should open a censors office to run through such scripts .We can only ponder who was responsible for this intervention . Presumably it was someone in the part of the Assembly who deal with rural issues and who enjoys bullying people .Are the Initials AD anyway connected?